There are various known conventional structures for capacitors in integrated circuit (IC) devices. One known conventional structure is a planar capacitor having parallel conductors on a dielectric surface, with their respective sidewalls having a facing area that establishes capacitance. There are various shortcomings of such structures. These can include an inherently high cost of IC area per unit of capacitance, difficulty in obtaining a high ratio of capacitance to resistance (known as “quality factor”), and parasitic inductance.
Another known conventional structure for IC capacitors is a parallel plate capacitor, formed of a stack of alternating metal and dielectric layers. There are various shortcomings of such parallel plate IC capacitors. Among these are inherently high costs of IC area per unit of capacitance.